Lions as Lambs
Eldin thumped the hard ground with an even harder fist and spat his frustration into the sand. “Merciful, the old windbag called himself,” he said, digging Hero in the ribs. “Merciful, eh?”
“Can’t you make a point without sticking your great fat elbow in me?” Hero grumbled, rubbing his side. “Look, I’m just as unhappy as you are, but all said and done I reckon we got off light. I mean, we could be rotting in some dungeon right now.”
They lay side by side on their stomachs in a clump of long, spiky yellow grass, gazing through its fringes upon the distant spires of Celephais. The city was sprinkled with the lights of a thousand lanthorns now that night was descending; and long shadows, cast by the early crescent moon which stood almost clear of the hills to the north of the city, lay stark on the barren western desert.
The adventurers had been “obliged” to take the old caravan trail out of Celephais, which was a perfectly acceptable route by yak but utter misery on foot. And it was forty miles to the nearest town. Two of those miles had been sufficient to decide the pair against the remaining
thirty-eight. As Eldin rightly said: they might as well hang for lions as lambs. Not that they were lambs in any sense of the word; but in any case there were factors to be taken into account other than the blistering desert trek chosen for them by Leewas Nith.
For it was one thing to lose their fine clothes, presented to them by Ilek-Vad’s royal tailors—and even worse to be deprived of their yaks—but hardest of all to bear was the loss of their swords. Hero’s was a long, light, curved blade of Kled, of exquisite, expensive workmanship and perfectly suited to his hand. Eldin’s had been a heavy, straight sword forged in Inquanok, a two-handed blade by dreamland’s standards but easily wielded in one hand by this burly son of the waking world.
Moreover, there was something about Eldin’s sword, something which would not permit him to leave it in Celephais. It had been touched by the power of the First Ones, which made it very special in Eldin’s eyes. Not that the sword appeared to be any different now—it did not seem to have acquired any special powers—but still Eldin felt naked without it and knew no other weapon could ever take its place.
Yes, and there was yet another reason why they must go back. No one high-tailed Eldin the Wanderer and David Hero out of town; not even out of one of dreamland’s most beautiful and revered towns. They would yet leave their mark on Celephais. Even a small mark would be better than none at all.
Which was why, as evening came down, they had left the old caravan route and circled back toward the outskirts of the city. They had used whatever cover was available, and their leather clothing, against a background of brown desert and evening shadow, had effectively camouflaged them. Eldin’s short-sleeved jacket,
shirt and trousers were all dull black, as were his boots, which had been his choice and much to his liking. Hero’s clothes were of a russet brown, including his short, hooded cape. Indeed the pair had been lucky to be offered garments so closely matching their habitual dress of old; so that other than their swordlessness, there was now nothing to tell them from the wandering adventurers they had been before reaping the rewards of their heroics in Ilek-Vad.
For however fantastic it had seemed (and despite one or two minor embellishments), Eldin’s tale in the court of Leewas Nith had been essentially true, and the pair had more than deserved their rewards. Now, however, penniless once more and outcast, it seemed they must turn again to thievery—at which they were very good—or else starve. And if they were to be thieves, where better to start than with their swords? For without weapons any future escapades seemed more than unlikely, to say nothing of downright dangerous. It may be a bad thing to be caught
in flagrante delicto,
but it is much worse to have to fight your way out with feet, fists and teeth alone!
“Getting dark,” Eldin grunted. “Time we were moving.”
Hero shook his head. “Uh-uh. Too many lights in the city. And we’re too well known there. No, we’ll give it another hour or so and let them settle down for the night before we move in. Luckily Ephar Phoog’s auction house is near the wharves. The area should be poorly lighted and dressed as we are we’ll be near invisible, a couple of ghosts. We should come out of it intact. Then we steal a small boat and put out to sea. After that—” he shrugged. “We’ll just have to see which way Lady Luck points us.”
“And we’ll leave something behind for the folks of Celephais to remember us by, eh?”
Hero looked at his too-eager friend in the dusk. “What would you suggest?” he suspiciously asked.
“Oh, I dunno,” Eldin shrugged. “We could always put torch to Ephar Phoog’s auction house …”
Hero tut-tutted. “You know, I sometimes wonder about you, Eldin,” he informed. “Ever since we burned Thalarion you’ve been dying to set things on fire. First a tavern and now an auction house. But no, I don’t think so,” he shook his head disapprovingly. “No, I think the theft of a boat quite strong enough. Besides, Celephais is a lovely place. Arson isn’t our scene, old friend.”
Eldin fell silent for a minute, then grinned through his beard. “They accused the legless firebug of that,” he offhandedly informed.
“Eh? A legless firebug?” Hero peered across the gloomy distance separating them from the city. “What did they accuse him of?”
“Too much arson about!” said Eldin with a chuckle.
Hero groaned and cast his eyes heavenward. “At a time like this? How in the name of all that’s dreamed can you tell such awful jokes when we’re—”
“Oh, don’t go on so,” growled the older adventurer. “And anyway,” he changed the subject, “I’m not so sure you’re right.”
“Right about what?” asked Hero.
“About staying here for hours on end. I’ve got the cramps already. Listen, why don’t we make our way into the lee of Mount Aran there, and follow the ginkgo trees toward the sea? There’ll be no one under those trees tonight but lovers. Also, it’ll put us on that side of the city closest to Ephar Phoog’s auction house.”
Hero looked at Aran where the mountain showed its
snowy cap. Mount Aran was one of those places, of which there were many in Earth’s dreamland, that defied Nature’s laws. No matter the season, there was always snow on Aran’s tall peak. “You’re pretty shrewd for all your bad jokes,” Hero finally said.
“Good!” grunted Eldin, making to get up. But Hero grabbed his arm before he could stand.
“Half an hour,” said the younger man. “It’ll be dark enough then. We mustn’t jeopardize good planning for unnecessary haste.”
Eldin grudgingly grunted his agreement. “Oh, all right,” he said. “But I still think we’re wasting time.”
“Yes, well, better to waste a few minutes here than a year or so in some dungeon under Celephais.”
Eldin might have continued the argument had he not noticed the frown suddenly grown on Hero’s face and the way his eyes peered at the darkening sky far beyond the city’s silhouette of spires, turrets and minarets. “Ah! You’ve spotted them, have you?” he asked instead.
“Um? Those lights, d’you mean?” said Hero. “What the devil are they?”
“Lights in the sky,” Eldin chuckled, “What else?”
“Stars, d’you suppose? They’re pretty low in the sky for stars, and they seem to be … moving?”
Eldin sighed. “You’ve never been to Celephais before, have you? This was your first trip here—and you spent most of it looking after me, right?”
Hero nodded, never once taking his eyes from the bright points of light in the sky far beyond the city.
“You know, lad,” Eldin went on, “you really should pay more attention when I talk about the things I’ve done and the places I’ve seen. Don’t you remember when first we decided to come here, how I told you what I knew of Celephais? How Celephais had wonders
other than the permanently snowy peak of Mount Aran?”
Hero turned his head to peer into his friend’s gloom-shadowed face and frowned in concentration. “Something about ships that sail into the sky?” he hazarded.
Eldin sighed again, this time in resignation. “All right,” he said, “we’ll start again at square one. Only this time listen:
“Celephais lies in the Valley of Ooth-Nargai. Those hills over there, they’re the Tanarians, and the desert behind us is the Oon. Aran you already know; but you don’t know about the timelessness.”
“Timelessness?” repeated Hero.
Eldin nodded. “Time’s queer in the dreamlands, sure enough,” he said, “but more so in Celephais. Things don’t age greatly here and the seasons don’t come around so often. That’s one of the reasons, I fancy, why there’s always snow on Aran. The whole place seems to resent, to
resist
change.
“And it’s this timelessness and continuity that attracted Kuranes to Celephais. He was once a dreamer same as us, but he’s gone a ways since then. Still, he’s more a benevolent old oracle than a king proper, more a prophet than a power. He spends half his time here in Celephais, the rest of it in Serannian. Now Serannian, that’s a really fantastic place!”
“That’s what you said about Celephais—before we got here and you started to hit the bottle,” Hero grumbled. “Serannian,” he tasted the word. “Isn’t that the mythical sky-floating city I’ve heard mention of somewhere?”
“Right,” said Eldin, “but it’s no myth, I promise you. I’ve never been there myself, mind you, but according to all the stories I’ve heard about it—”
“I think it’s dark enough now,” said Hero.
“Damn me!” Eldin grated. “Even now you haven’t been listening, have you?”
“You can tell me later,” Hero answered. “We can talk as we go—so long as we keep it quiet. Come on then, let’s head for the foot of the mountain. But go carefully whatever you do. Old Leewas Nith wasn’t joking when he tossed us out. If we’re caught again …” And he let the sentence hang.
They cut across the scrub of the desert, moving as shadows, and as they went so Eldin spoke of this marvelous valley and the legends he remembered of it. By the time they reached Aran’s foot and climbed it to where the ginkgos waved their fanlike foliage in a light evening breeze, he was telling Hero of the city’s fabulous harbor.
“It’s said,” (he related), “that ships sailing out of the bay of Celephais cease to be governed by the law of gravity. The sea out there,” and he nodded his head toward the rolling expanse of ocean beyond the city, “is a funny sort of sea. Normally when you look out to sea the horizon only seems to meet the sky. Here in Celephais it really does! That’s why most of the ships that sail from here are bound for Serannian.”
“Oh?” said Hero. “Well, that’s no damn good to us, is it? I mean what you’ve said makes Serannian virtually an island. If we end up on—or in—Serannian, it may not be the easiest thing in dreamland to get off again. It would be like leaping out of a frying pan into the fire!”
“Not us,” answered Eldin. “We’re not heading for Serannian. No, we’ll hug the coast and head east. It’s only if you make for the horizon that you sail into the sky. There’s a coast of clouds up there, piled up by the west wind, and that’s where Serannian is built of pink marble.”
Hero could not quite hide his snort of derision. “What? I mean, it’s bad enough asking me to believe in
any
sort of city in the sky without it being built of marble!”
“The eidolon Lathi’s city Thalarion was built of paper,” reminded Eldin.
“Yes, it was,” Hero agreed, “—on the ground!”
“You know, I often wonder how I ever teamed up with you in the first place,” said Eldin. “I can’t understand why you’re a dreamer at all. You’ve no imagination, my lad. There’s too much of the waking world in you for your own good. After all we’ve been through, can’t you get it into your head that things are different here? Vastly different. Time and space are different, and the laws of Nature and of Science.”
“—And of Magic!” Hero added.
“Well, yes, that’s true enough,” Eldin agreed. “Dream-magic has a certain amount of science in it, and dream-science has more than its share of magic. It’s difficult to tell one from the other, really. But anyway, there are mighty engines built into Serannian’s foundation. I’ve heard that they manufacture the ethereal stuff that keeps the city afloat on the air. Perhaps it’s this stuff—leaking off, so to speak—that comes drifting down to the sea and changes it. Maybe it forms the great wide river which the traders ride in their galleys from the horizon to the sky.”
“Maybe,” scowled Hero, a trifle skeptically—too skeptically for his older, more experienced companion.
“Well, you just believe what you want to,” Eldin snarled as his patience left him at last. “But remember: the next time you see lights in the sky, don’t ask me about them. Right?”
Night-gaunts Over Dreamland
The apparent animosity which existed between the pair meant nothing. Anyone who knew them (though admittedly their true friends could be numbered on two hands and still leave both thumbs and a few fingers to spare) would happily testify that their banter was very often bruising, and especially so on the eve of a grand adventure. It was a matter of nerves, of inner tensions, and on this particular occasion of Eldin’s slow emergence from long weeks of drunken misery.
First he had needed to recover from the loss of Aminza Anz, woken up from dreams on the very day when they were to be wed in Ilek-Vad, and now he must recover from the instrument of his recovery. A few days of enforced abstinence while awaiting trial had helped, and with luck the coming escapade might just complete the job. In short, Eldin was “drying out.”
As for Hero: he, too, had had a bad time of it. Quite apart from nursemaiding Eldin, what should have been for Hero a luxurious and elysian stay in Celephais had gone disastrously wrong. With their rich robes, money and fine yaks, the pair would have been well advised to play their highest cards—that is, to assume the roles of
prosperous merchants and board in one of Celephais’ better inns. They had fallen prey to habit, however, and so had put up at the wormy tavern of Arkim Sallai in a less than savory quarter of the city.
There, in an atmosphere reminiscent of other sojourns in dreamland’s more earthy inns and taverns, and in the company of shifty characters with questionable backgrounds, they had quickly forgotten their recent and much-applauded heroics and reverted to type. With the almost inevitable result that they were what and where they were now: a pair of fugitives heading through the back streets of Celephais toward Ephar Phoog’s auction house … And also toward a new and no less fantastic adventure than their last, though they could hardly be expected to know that.
They spoke not at all as they moved parallel to the waterfront, traversing the city’s shadowed alleys with the supple, alert speed of great cats; and so covert their movements and silent, that a small party of pleasure-seekers which noisily passed them where they merged into the shadows of a shallow shop doorway failed even to suspect their presence. And so at last, completely unchallenged, they arrived at the rear of the auction house, where it was only a matter of moments before they had scaled the high, featureless wall into Ephar Phoog’s back yard.
Behind stacks of old chairs and tables and other items of household furniture they found a door with small-paned windows, and here Eldin employed a massive diamond ring (given him by Aminza Anz’s father and cleverly retained despite the loss of all else) swiftly to remove one of the near-opaque panes from its frame. Then: a hamlike hand inserted, the bolt drawn, and the auction house standing open to the cat-eyes of the pair where they entered to silently prowl its dusty rooms.
Since their swords were to be auctioned the very next day, they made straight for the auction room itself. Situated centrally in the great house—which was mercifully a warehouse as opposed to a dwellinghouse proper, so that Phoog had his home elsewhere in the city—they found the auction room with its tiers of seats; and here, secure in the knowledge that the light would not be seen from without, Eldin lit a taper.
It was a matter of moments then to find their trusty blades (or “rusty blades,” as Hero was wont to have it), and in the glow of the taper they admired the work which some retainer of Ephar Phoog, perhaps the auctioneer himself, had done on the weapons. For from tip to tail the swords had been cleaned, buffed and polished to a high reflectivity, until their razor-edged blades were bright as long, slender mirrors!
“Good swords are rare in dreamland,” Eldin breathed, breaking the long silence. “Phoog knows that, and he also knows fine blades when he sees them. These would have fetched a pretty penny, you can bet your life.”
“Aye,” whispered Hero in answer. “Well, I’m already betting my life—or at least a good part of it—just by being here. So let’s get these dear old friends belted on and hustle our backsides out of it, shall we?”
Eldin touched the tip of his nose with a finger and raised a bushy eyebrow. He winked. “Don’t be so eager to go,” he told his younger companion. “The night is young, after all. You never know what we might find lying about in here if we look closely enough. For instance—” And he pounced on a small crate of four dusty bottles. “Look at this!”
Hero took a square bottle from Eldin, blew the thick accumulation of dust and cobwebs from its squat shape and peered at the ancient label. He whistled.
“Good stuff, is it?” Eldin eagerly asked, licking his lips as he pushed a pair of bottles into his spacious pockets.
“Good? It’s the best! Five hundred years old if it’s a day. A vintage of primal Sarkomand, by the look of it, and the wines of Sarkomand were known to improve by the century! Here, let me see that ticket on the crate.” He ripped the lot card from its string fastenings and read it out loud:
“Found in the Hold of a strange
Derelict wrecked on Fang Rocks to
the West of the City of Celephais,
and claimed by Ephar Phoog whose
Retainers seized the Wreck.”
“Well, well, well!”
“Here,” said Eldin, “give me that card.” He took up a charcoal scribbler from the auctioneer’s bench and scrawled on the card’s reverse:
“Found again in the Auction Rooms
of Ephar Phoog, by Eldin the Wanderer
and David Hero, who, since
they had more Need of it, also
seized it!”
A few minutes later, after satisfying themselves that there was little else small enough or valuable enough to interest them, the pair left Phoog’s premises, both of them chuckling at the thought of the auctioneer’s face the next day when he discovered he had been burgled and by whom. “And isn’t this better,” asked Hero of Eldin, “than simply burning the place down?”
“I suppose you’re right,” said the older thief. “Certainly
we’ll attract less attention this way. And all that remains now is our escape from the city …”
A pair of shadows once more, they made their way from the auction house to the marble-walled waterfront and quickly chose a vessel. It was a simple little craft, with a single mast folded down and a pair of oars dangling from oarlocks. A tarpaulin covered the prow and forward part of the boat and there was a full cask of water with a tap in the stern. Since they hardly expected to occupy the vessel for more than a night at most, this would seem to be provision enough.
They cast off and rowed quietly for the wall of mist that lay thick on the calm night sea less than one hundred yards from the wharf, but before they could reach it the tarpaulin in the prow was thrown back and a great black-bearded fisherman clasping an empty bottle emerged from a tangle of nets. “Huh? What? Who?” gasped the disoriented man.
“Which? Where? Why?” added Hero speculatively.
Eldin shipped his bar and pointed it at the boat’s drunken owner where he staggered about bewildered in the prow. “I know exactly how you feel, lad,” he growled. “But tell me, can you swim?”
“Eh? Swim? ’Course I can swim!” came the ale-fuddled answer.
“So swim,” said Eldin, and shoved with the oar.
A moment later, leaving a splashing, spluttering swimmer in its wake, their commandeered craft slid into the mist and the dim lights of Celephais’ waterfront were soon lost from sight. Now, since there was no wind to speak of, they bent their backs to the oars and pulled into the night, fairly skimming over the mist-wreathed water.
For long minutes they toiled, until suddenly they drew clear of the mist and out onto the open sea. Behind
them the harbor lights showed on both sides of the bay’s wall of mist, and beyond that rose Mount Aran and the silhouette of Celephais, dark now with the exception of a scattered handful of dim lights.
“Safe and sound away,” grunted Eldin with a degree of satisfaction. “And is this a breeze I smell? Indeed it is! Up sail, lad, and I’ll man the tiller!”
“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” said Hero, manhandling the mast into position and rigging the sail. “Which way are we bound, Cap’n, sir?”
“East, lad, along the coast. This here’s the Cerenerian Sea, and I’ve no wish to sail into the sky.”
“No, indeed, Cap’n,” said Hero, plumping himself down with his back to the mast as Eldin handled the tiller.
“Brrr!”
shivered the older adventurer where he sat, and he convincingly rattled his teeth.
“Eh?” questioned Hero. “
Brrr,
did you say? Are you cold, old son?”
“Cap’n to you, lad,” snapped Eldin, “and damn right I’m cold! Frost on the stars and snow falling, and ice on the lashings to burn a man’s hands!”
Now Hero began to frown. Frost, snow, ice? He was still sweating profusely from the hard rowing. “Silly bloody game!” he grumbled.
“No, no!” cried Eldin. “It’s cold, I tell ’e! Break out the rum, lad.”
“Rum? We’ve no—” And at last Hero saw his friend’s meaning. Laughing, Eldin produced a square bottle and knocked off its neck against the gunwale. He closed his fist round the jagged rim, tilted the bottle and drank through his fingers, then passed the wine to Hero.
“Ah! Great stars of night!” Eldin groaned his appreciation as Hero took a swig in his turn. “And did you ever taste anything like that before?”
“Never!” said Hero, smacking his lips. “But what a waste. This—” he tapped the bottle with a fingernail “—is a wine to be savored in palaces of the gods. A vintage to enhance the flavor of rare viands—not guzzled in a matchstick boat on a midnight sea … Here, you take this bottle back and I’ll crack one of my own!”
And he did …
Now where hard drinking was concerned Hero and Eldin could normally hold their own with anyone in dreamland. They had boozed and battled their way into and out of at least one quarter of all dreamland’s towns and cities, and fully intended to work their way through the other three. This time, however, they were up against the unknown and the unexperienced. Namely, a wine of Sarkomand, matured in the bottle for five long centuries.
Later, when Hero had time to think about it, he would half-remember a similar bout of wine-bibbing in the cavern of Thinistor Udd—and its consequences. He would vaguely recall thinking how exquisitely
smooth
the wine of Sarkomand was in the swallowing, and how he could probably drink a gallon before it caught up with him. Which must have been about fifteen seconds before it caught up with him! Also in the less accessible regions of his mind were kaleidoscope memories of idiot giggling bouts, and coarse, raucous ballads, and of Eldin collapsing with his legs over the tiller, and of the sky going round and round and round and …
Following which, he remembered the agony of regaining consciousness to thin morning mists, and of lying in the bottom of a boat that rocked and rocked and rocked … until weak with nausea he lapsed back into his drunken stupor. Then there had been a second wakening, this time to a night sky full of stars which
seemed so close that he need only put out his hand to touch them.
And finally there was the present realization that at last it was daylight once more, or very nearly so, and that he was stiff and numb and at last truly awake—the wine burned out of his system, his mouth dry as shredded paper, his eyes burning like hot coals where they gazed up startled from his haggard face into a newly dawning sky—and that the sound of Eldin’s groans of misery were sending lances of fire into his skull.
And
the knowledge that something had awakened him—had literally shocked him awake—but what?
As if in answer to his unspoken query, the something came again: a great throbbing of leathery wings and a nightmare shape that flapped into view level with the top of the single slender mast. A huge night-gaunt, rubbery and horned, its bared tail seeking purchase on the mast and its prehensile paws grasping at the sail’s thin canvas sheet.
“Gaunt!” croaked Hero, leaping (or at least staggering) to his feet—only to be knocked flat a moment later as a second gaunt landed behind him on the port gunwale and buffeted him with its faceless head. For answer to his hoarse-voiced warning Eldin groaned even louder, and Hero might have joined in if his entire being had not already frozen solid.
For he had fallen down with his head and shoulders protruding over the starboard gunwale, which position had served to bring him face to face with the most unexpected and unnerving view of his entire existence in both waking and dream-worlds alike. Far down below the keel of the boat, seen through wispy breaks in a bank of pink and fluffy cloud, the mountains, rivers and angular coastline of dreamland looked like features on a small-scale relief map!
So, instead of groaning, Hero gave a completely uncharacteristic little shriek and hung on desperately to the gunwale as the boat rocked and threatened to tip him into space. And as a flood of adrenalin drove the last dregs of wine from his fevered veins, so the realization dawned on Hero that things had once again gone disastrously wrong.
They were sailing on the Cerenerian Sea in that region of dreamland where the west wind flows into the sky, where cloud-floating, pink-marbled Serannian’s incredible bulk is builded on an ethereal shore of clouds. Indeed, they might yet tie up in Serannian’s harbor—